


Hold Your Breath

by boyonthebluemoon



Category: Chase Atlantic (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Band Fic, Drama, Gen, One Shot, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-08 20:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17393267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyonthebluemoon/pseuds/boyonthebluemoon
Summary: The Cave brothers are already running late for their afternoon band practice, but Mitchel isn't feeling so well.





	Hold Your Breath

Mitchel could still taste the Adderall settling in his mouth, and it didn’t feel very nice.

He was briskly jogging and out of breath as he struggled to keep up with his older brother, who was already several feet ahead of him. “Clinton. Slow down mate. We’ve got all day, y’know.” He pleaded.

“Yeah, but you know how Chris is.” Clinton replied, his breaths still and steady, his feet not missing a single step. “He gets his surfer blonde hair in quite a nasty twist whenever we’re late. Even if it’s just for an hour-long rehearsal. Plus, Jesse’s already there and I swear if I catch those two little bastards putting talcum powder in my saxophone again, I am seriously going to have to kill someone.” He cracked his knuckles threateningly to further emphasise his point.

“To be fair, you messed with Jesse’s drums like a day before that. I mean, he tripped on his drumsticks and nearly broke his nose, for god’s sake.” Mitchel reasoned out. “And let Christian stew on his murder intents on us for once. It’s not like that tiny boy’s gonna hurt us much anyway.” He stopped jogging and crouched with his hands on his knees, panting out heavily. “Just...I need a break. I’m running so much I feel like even my demons are exercised.”

Clinton slowed down considerably, but he didn’t come to a full stop. “Damn, you are one out of shape man." He said, looking gravely at Mitchel as he assessed him over. "Well, that’s what you get for eating too many Macca burgers.” He finally tutted with an unsympathetic head shake.

“Says the person who was swallowing a Hunger Jack’s meal practically whole two hours ago.” Mitchel rolled his eyes exasperatedly at his brother. “I swear you’re like a python when you eat. It’s incredibly fascinating but also very disgusting to watch at the same time.”

“Oh shut up.” Clinton scowled at him. “I’m more fit than you, aren’t I?”

Mitchel simply grinned. “You wish, mate.”

For a moment, Mitchel felt fine. And then suddenly, he felt dizzy. His pounding chest tightened up and he couldn’t draw any oxygen from his lungs anymore. He felt so weak. So drained. So powerless.

He struggled to retain his balance, trying not fall flat on his face as he clumsily stumbled to the side of the street. Mitchel's hands flailed a bit as his panic-stricken body looked for something to lean on, and he found a streetlight pole to steady himself against.

He closed his eyes and groaned shakily. Cold sweat was relentlessly trickling down his forehead. There was a massive migraine crashing and roaring inside his temple that he couldn’t get rid of. He was all alone. **All alone.** _All alone..._

“Mitchel?” A concerned voice jolted him from his unnerved trance and made him look up.

Clinton was right next to him, his eyebrows scrunched up in distress and his lips taut with worry. Wispy strands of hair fell over his flushed sweaty face, but he didn’t bother brushing them off, as he simply continued to gaze at Mitchel with utmost alarm.

“Hey, what happened?”

Mitchel fidgeted unsurely, still hesitant to tell him. He always hated to bother Clinton with his stupid problems because he didn't want to worry him about nothing, but he knew that his brother was the only one who would listen. The only one who was always there for him. And the only one who actually cared. 

So he took a deep breath and began to explain himself the best that he can.

“Everything’s fucking with my head again.” He confessed, his quivering voice barely above a whisper. He felt unsteady and narcoleptic, as that all-too familiar feeling of frigid ice began to creep up his veins and froze his insides, making him feel nauseous. “I don’t...I don’t know. I was okay one second, and then just like that, I wasn’t.”

“Why am I like this, Clinton?” Mitchel uttered desperately as he buried his face in his palms, feeling despondent and crazy, his headache getting palpably worse. “I’m already drowned in a lot of fucking medication, and yet my brain’s still acting this way. I hate this. I hate feeling like this. I wish I was normal. I wish I could just...quit stalling, you know?”

Clinton was silent for a while. Finally, after a minute or so, he spoke up.

“I think we should take a break.”

Mitchel nodded solemnly in agreement. They quietly sat down on the pavement kerb and peacefully watched the cars go by, counting the steady trickle of vehicles speeding past their eyes, as the cool ensconcing wind rushed alongside them like an invisible symphony, kicking up leaves everywhere and messing up their hair.

Mitchel fiddled with his braids, staring with utmost fascination as he twisted and untangled them, his shuddering breath calmly reduced to a dull ache. He said nothing at all. He simply sat there with a hazy, absent look on his face, but Clinton could sense the heavy presence that was addling his mind with bittersweet thoughts. It really pained Clinton to see his younger brother like this. Depressed. Helpless. Right on the verge of another bad breakdown. He had to do something.

“Well, Christian and Jesse are most likely plotting their revenge on us already for not showing up at practice today.” Clinton sighed out hopelessly with a casual shrug. “So what do you say we plot our re-revenge on those sneaky sons of bitches and get them back real good?”

Mitchel quietly chuckled, a glimmer of light finally returning in his pensive blue eyes. Clinton held his younger brother’s shoulder reassuringly and smiled. Mitchel looked up at him and smiled back, a soft flicker of a boyish smile that always made Clinton laugh.

For a while, the brothers shared an afternoon of amusement, laughing at everything, laughing at nothing, laughing at themselves, letting the darkness saturate the horizon and letting the shadows fall on their gleeful faces without a care in the world.

They sat on that kerb and talked about random conversations until Mitchel felt genuinely happy for the first time in days, until he slowly forgot that his emotions were even acting up in the first place, until nothing else mattered to him than that moment of fun with his brother, even if for just a while.

When they finally got up to leave, the night had grown deep, the streets were moon-blanched, and all the scintillating stars in the sky whispered with the astral sounds of the sleeping universe. Mitchel helped Clinton stand up, and Clinton draped an assuring arm over Mitchel’s shoulder as they both began walking back home.

“It will be fine, Mitch.” Clinton promised.

“You’ll be fine.”


End file.
